1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to data backup software for computer systems. More particularly, the invention relates to a system and method for backing up data from a client computer system to an alternate backup server computer system when a connection to a primary backup server computer system is unavailable.
2. Description of the Related Art
Computer systems often employ backup solutions to backup data in order to protect it against hardware failure or data corruption. Data may be stored on a storage device of a computer system in the form of files. Backup techniques for backing up the files generally operate to copy the files to a different backup storage device. One general backup technique is to backup the files at the file level, e.g., to copy each file to the backup storage device on a file-by-file basis. Another general backup technique is to backup the backup the files at the storage device block level rather than on a file-by-file basis. In this technique, the blocks may be sequentially read from the disk drive or other storage device on which the files are stored and written to the backup storage device.
Large organizations often include many users, each of whom uses a different client computer system. It may be necessary or desirable to backup data stored on each user's client computer system to a backup server, e.g., where the backup server is located within a data center maintained by the organization.